Whittling my Reads

At times I wonder if I'm hopelessly behind the times.

I hate the simplicity and brevity of Pinterest.  I still use FB and find Google+ awkward.  And (obviously) I still blog.  I can't compress all my thoughts into 140 characters.  And when I open my browser I want to see my mail, calendar, a list of the recent posts from the blogs I read, weather, and comments to my blogs all on one page.

Which is why I've been using iGoogle, which Google announced it will be doing away with.

I moved from MyYahoo to iGoogle for two reasons.  1) Yahoo still seems incredibly juvenile.  2) Google had a better variety of stuff.

I know that once iGoogle is gone my Google Reader will be useless.  Honestly? I just don't go to the page at all.  I screen my reading from my homepage, then go to the source blogs.  One reason is because between my two Google accounts I'm subscribed to some 300+ blogs on various topics:  science, weight loss and fitness, autism, politics, atheism, and a smattering of other interests, as well as the blogs of my friends and family.  I just don't want to take the time to scroll through some 300+ full articles every day.  I liked being able to scan the snippets and see what I wanted to read, mark them all as read (even if I'd skipped them) and get on with my day.

Now I've made a page of feeds on MyYahoo, but it's not the same.  And obviously I didn't add a gadget for every blog I read.  But when I went through them and pulled my absolutes, I had 6 blogs and three comic strips I figure I didn't want to go through the day without.

For the curious, here they are:

Biological Tales from the Brine Queen: This is my daughter's blog, and because she posts so seldom, it helps me keep track by keeping this front and center on my reading page (ok, it's top left, but you get the idea).  And while her posts are few and far between, when she DOES post, it's well worth reading.

Deep Sea News: Because I've been following these bloggers since before they had a joint blog, and because of my love of salt water critters.  They write in a way that's accessible to non-scientists but with the detail and information those in the field expect from professionals in the field.

Wandering Weeta (With Waterfowl and Weeds): For my daily fix of the natural world above sea level. Susannah seems to notice everything when she's out and about experiencing the natural world, and I always find something new and interesting to experience on her blog.

Ms Fit Online:  Probably the best single health and fitness blog out there, Carla treats the topic with sanity, balance, and a good dose of common sense, eschewing the extremism that often comes with sites by professional trainers.  Her tagline "Unapologetically Myself" is the key to her appeal: She's authentic.

Millard Fillmore's Bathtub: Education, politics, and a whopping dose of history... despite the variety of topics, I've never found an article that didn't interest me.  It's one of the few blogs I never skim, but read in it's entirety.

Apt. 11D:  I started reading this because of Laura's posts about her autistic son... posts that didn't have the kind of despair and angst that are in so many of the previous autism blogs I've read, but that held a kind of knowledgable acceptance.  I stayed reading because she blends those posts, her mommy blogging, and her political savvy in a way that's informative and interesting.

as for the comics:

PHD Comics:  It's been a while since I've been in grad school.  Maybe it's just that I miss it so darn much.  Maybe it's because I look at this comic and so often see my daughter (Brine Queen).  Maybe it's just because it's so darn amusing.

xkcd.com:  Humor, intelligence, science, current events...  They all come together with these comics, which are often insightful, ironic, and revealing.

Natalie Dee:  Probably the stupidest and most random thing on the web.  It's like crack for my brain some days.  Every day I look at it and think "Why the heck does anyone find this so funny?"  Then I come back the next day... and the next... and the next...  It's my dirty, low little habit.  I love it.

I'm not at all happy with the impending loss of iGoogle, but it's certainly made me evaluate my reading, and to start examining what I really want to spend my online time reading.